And in the Darkness Bound
by mirari1
Summary: Alone in the Void, Morgoth broods and waits.


A/N: Don't ask me where this came from, because I swear I don't know. All I wanted to do was sit down and write my English paper like a normal person, but Morgoth wouldn't leave me alone. So wrong. So very very wrong. Why can't I have a nice hot elf living in my head like everyone else seems to? *grumbles incoherently*  
  
Disclaimer: Definitely not mine (thank Eru!)  
  
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And In the Darkness Bound  
  
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Before ever there was Eä there was the Void. Terrible and black with a darkness that has never known light, it is laden with a silence never tempered by song, save once only. The Children of Ilúvatar do not walk in the Void, for its greedy chill would leech the warmth from their blood, and the weight of its emptiness grind their spirits into ash. Even the mighty Powers that wrought the earth and filled the seas before the years were counted do not often enter in; creation and life are their charges, and the Void holds nothing for them.  
  
There is one dweller only in the vast blackness, and it is He who walked there ere Arda was fashioned, and he is exiled. But Morgoth does not mind the dark, for it was ever his weapon and his cloak, and any terrors that dwell in the shadows were made of old by his hand. Nor does the cold gnaw him, for even tainted and diminished he is Ainur still, and his ancient fastness Utumno was hardly less bitter besides.  
  
It is the emptiness, the fathomless blankness and the silence that are his tormentors. Even during his long confinement in Mandos there was a slight stir and eddy of air at times, and the feel of solid earth beneath him always, but in the Void there is no sensation at all. Or rather, no sensation that he cares to feel. For the mighty chain Angainor that binds him bites cruelly, and the iron collar that was once his crown presses mercilessly against his throat. He is wounded, too, pierced by the blade of Fingolfin and the talons of Thorondor. His hands are burnt, the palms blackened and seared by the touch of the hallowed Silmarilli. For many ages he has borne those wounds, but they will not heal nor the pain of them fade while the world lasts.  
  
And above all there is the silence. When he was young, before the Great Music, when Morgoth was still Melkor, he would often walk alone in the Void, for its solitude allowed his thought to flower uninterrupted, and its stillness seemed full of promise. It was here in the measureless dark that he first conceived purposes of his own, estranged from the thought of his brethren. How fitting, that his designs should begin and end in the same timeless nothing. There is a kind of symmetry in it, one that he has often noticed in the meddlesome plots of Ilúvatar.  
  
Morgoth much prefers discord.  
  
And the silence no longer pleases him. For his fortresses have been cast down, and his tangled schemes laid bare, and all his subtle machinations have accomplished is to bring him here, to this dearth of all things. There is no future in the Void, nor time at all, and nothing for his thought to do but turn on the past like a cornered beast, savaging the desiccated corpses of his old plots.  
  
If all that he found there had gone ill with him, he would surely have gone mad. But though he has grown more bitter and hate-filled, and the last vestiges of his pride have been torn away he has not yet despaired. For many of his designs have borne fruit, and their twisted seedlings will yet endure long after the works of his enemies have crumbled to dust. And many of his foes are less free than he.  
  
For the realms of Nargothrond and Doriath are destroyed, and Gondolin is burned, and what power will raise drowned Beleriand from the sea that smothers her? None will. And Númenor has fallen and its glory and power been defiled, and the Elves have faded to sorrowing shadows and passed into oblivion. His strongholds of Utumno and Angband are no more, and his Lieutenant's realms of Angmar and Mordor have been purged, but what baptism of water or fire or earth or blood will wash clean the hearts of Men? None will.  
  
The Valar are confined to the Uttermost West and will stray from it no more, and the Elves are a dying people, good for naught but singing laments beside the indifferent sea. Those that remain on the shores of the world are little more than flitting ghosts, irrelevant memories of a vanished age, shying equally from Men and the Ainur.  
  
The thought of chains brings a bitter smile to Morgoth's face, for Fëanor and his sons wear more ponderous ones than he, and their bite is far sharper. For though Angainor was forged by Aulë and is strong beyond the power of Morgoth to shatter or cast off, the oaths of Fëanor and his cursed kin are stronger still, and more cruel for having been self-wrought. Grief and suffering they caused far beyond the measure of any bonds upon Morgoth, and he does not doubt that their imprisonment will prove the longer. Though the Silmarilli are at rest and that doom has been fulfilled, the Noldor are still bound with shackles smithied in the blood of their kin, and those will not be so easily discarded. Though of Fëanor and his sons only Maglor still lives, even Mandos cannot loose the chains they bear.  
  
In the terrible dark of the Void, alone and beyond redemption Morgoth waits. For time, merciless devourer of all things, is his ally. He has won, and if his foes are too blinded by the light of Valinor to see it, it is no concern of his. He will yet be Lord of Eä, and his triumph will be the sweeter for their bewilderment.  
  
And when all creation has passed through fire into ash, and the Walls of the World have crumbled, and the dust of their passing has scattered and gone, and even Morgoth is no more, the Void will still remain, unaltered.  
  
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A/N: This takes place after the end of the Third Age (as you probably guessed : )). Don't ask me how Morgoth heard about the fall of Numenor or Mordor. Maybe the Valar finally got hold of Sauron and tossed him out with his master. Or maybe he heard it from Earendil. Anyway, maybe now Morgoth will find someone else's head to play in and leave mine alone. Thanks for reading! 


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